CLEVELAND — After two days without a game, the Padres played two games within one day.
Four outs from completing a doubleheader sweep and what would have been the most successful long road trip since their inaugural season, they instead settled for a split and a 6-2 finish to their 10-day trek.
The doubleheader against the Guardians at cold and damp Progressive Field began with a strong return by Mike Clevinger, saw rookie MacKenzie push further than he had before in the second game and didn’t go entirely the Padres’ way in part because of some of their former players.
Clevinger made his season debut, and the Padres won 5-4 in the first game. After Gore went a career-high 5 2/3 innings in the second game and the Padres took a three-run lead into the eighth inning, the Guardians tied the game in the eighth and won 6-5 in the 10th inning when Steven Kwan’s single scored former Padres prospect Owen Miller from second base with the winning run.
Miller and former Padres right fielder Franmil Reyes scored, and former Padres Austin Hedges and Josh Naylor both hit RBI singles in the Guardians’ three-run eighth inning.
The Padres went 6-2 on the trip through Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and Cleveland.
As luck would have it, the series Clevinger had hoped to pitch in since the schedule came out, coincided with his being ready to return. The right-hander had Tommy John surgery in November 2020, missed last season and began this season on the injured list with a sprained knee.
He dined Monday night on an off day for both team with friend Zach Plesac, who started the first game for the Indians.
And after waiting an extra day because of rain that pummeled Northern Ohio on Tuesday night, Clevinger faced the team he pitched for 4½ seasons, before the Padres sent three major leaguers and three of their top 11 prospects to the Guardians to get him at the trade deadline in 2020.
It was 51 degrees, and fog obscured the tops of downtown buildings as Clevinger took the mound in a major league game for the first time since thew 2020 National League Division Series.
“It was overwhelming at first,” Clevinger said. “It was amazing to get back out there and compete. It’s been a super long road.”
He allowed a run in the third inning, and when the two runners he left on base for Steven Wilson scored in the fifth, Clevinger’s final line had him allowing three runs on four hits and three walks with four strikeouts in 4 2/3 innings.
Nabil Crismatt worked the sixth and seventh innings, allowing a run, Luis Garcia pitched a perfect eighth, and Taylor Rogers set down the Guardians’ 2-3-4 hitters in order for his 10th save.
One-out walks by Jake Cronenworth and Manny Machado and a two-out single by Hosmer gave the Padres a 1-0 lead in the first inning.
Cronenworth reached on an error in the third inning and Machado followed with a home run on a 108 mph drive so much on a line that it barely cleared the 19-foot wall in left field.
After the Guardians tied the game 3-3 in the fifth, doubles by Ha-seong Kim and Austin Nola, a single by Matt Beaty and sacrifice fly by Cronenworth put the Padres back up, 5-3, in the sixth inning.
The Guardians got to 5-4 in the seventh when Miller drew a one-out walk off Crismatt, went to third on a double by Naylor and scored on a groundout by Amed Rosario. Both Miller and Naylor were part of the Clevinger trade.
So was right-hander Cal Quantrill, who started Wednesday’s second game.
Again, two walks and a hit by Hosmer in the first inning got the Padres going. This time, it was a two-run double. That was followed by Ha-seong Kim’s single that scored Hosmer to make it 3-0.
Quantrill finished six innings without allowing another hit.
The Padres’ next hit was Cronenworth’s single leading off the eighth inning.
Gore went 5 2/3 innings, an out longer than he had in any of his first three starts, and he became just the fourth Padres pitcher ever to go at least five innings and allow two earned runs or fewer in his first four career starts.
The run against Gore came in the second inning when a lead-off single and a pair of two-out singles loaded the bases and he walked Jose Ramirez.
With his four-hit, three-walk, two-strikeout outing, Gore lowered his ERA to 1.71 in 21 total innings.
He departed with the 3-1 lead. After the Guardians got to 3-2 with a run against Craig Stammen in the seventh, the Padres went back up by three in the eighth.
Cronenworth was forced out on Machado’s grounder, but Machado stole second with and scored when a checked swing by Jurickson Profar sent the ball down the left field line for a double.
Trevor Stephan walked the bases full, struck out Jorge Alfaro and walked CJ Abrams to make it 5-2.
The Guardians scored three runs off Tim Hill in the eighth, the final two on singles by Hedges and Naylor, who was pinch-hitting against Robert Squarez.
Suarez pitched a scoreless ninth.
The Padres loaded the bases with one out in the top of the 10th, but pinch-hitter Austin Nola hit into a double play.
